These Are Me Links

I have this colleague at work who is a major loud talker. His voice is a blast of sonic boom. He is all crescendo and cacophony. My eardrums are harrassed in his presence. Can you get a court injunction against a voice? Like, don't create vocal soundwaves within 25 feet of me or else? I think the judge would agree to it after he met Blurt McLoud.

I'll put it this way, sometimes Blurt makes me cringe when he talks. That's right, I have an actual physiological response to his voice. In Psychology, I saw this video of Little Albert, this infant who was trained to have a scare response to white bunny rabbits because it was presented along with this loud noise behind him. Poor kid was traumatized in the name of science! And a SOCIAL science, at that!

I feel like Little Albert. But I haven't told you the worst part. His volume actually operates according to a logrithm function - else said, the more inappropriate the topic, the louder he gets. Exponentially! Hence the logrithm. Conversely, at some meetings when he introduces himself, I seriously have to focus to hear what he is saying. It's like a soft "soothing" mumble. Not understanding all the math talk? Yeah, me either. If you're like me, you prefer the "show" to the "tell." Here's my graphical point:Another example: A while ago, a female coworker and I arrived at the office a few minutes late. We happened to meet up on our block. As we enter the building, Blurt overhears our conversation, which was about who-remembers-what. We were debating a number of something-or-other, and I said, "It was six." We go upstairs and a few minutes behind us, Blurt stomps up the stairs and sonic booms from the hallway into our office doors, "WHAT'S GOING ON YOU TWO? FIRST YOU BOTH COME IN LATE TOGETHER, AND THEN I HEAR YOU TALKING ABOUT SEX!"

Mind you, I work in a student services office. It was normal business hours. Thankfully we had just opened, so there weren't many, if any, students around. But c'mon, show some tact. So I have to explain that I said six. "OH OKAY, I THOUGHT YOU SAID SEX!" Good lord.

If he sees you a block away, he will yell at you. He's yelled at me from his car as I'm walking down the street on campus. One of our ex-coworkers, a mental health counselor by training, used to model a very calm and quiet tone when Blurt was being particularly robust. It was funny to hear the extremes, and he never did catch on.

I feel bad because he is a nice guy who means well. He's just clueless that he is a contributing factor to nerve deafness. Fortunately, I haven't experienced any ringing of the ears yet. If that happens, I'm taking Blurt McLoud onto Judge Judy's show. Do not attempt to adjust the volume of your TV - your technology is useless against him.

8 comments:

Hey Christo, what's the news? Good lastpost about the wordjam, sounded interesting, would have liked to have seen that, Mr. Mohawk seems like a character too. Maybe Blurt has hearing problems, maybe he can't hear himself so well so he's all the time shouting because he lives constantly in that state the rest of us normal people only experience when we try to talk while wearing headphones blaring music, I'm not sure of the scientific name for that, I guess it is probably called the headphone-deaf-loud-talking effect, you might have a graph for that, you know the one. Anyways, now in Colorado, or as I like to call it, Colored. The town is nice, up highish, dry country, table mesa flat top type mountains, red rock, near Utah, a lot of jobs too, and a college. Hoping that my second interview with one company in particular means I am nearly hired. If you are interested in coming into these parts, I recomend you go to Boulder, nice place. If you come out to the western slope area, where I am, Grand Junction, you'll need a cowboy hat. Take care, now.

I think you made a mistake on that graph. Either the curve should be inversed or the lables should be swapped i.e. the volume should be on the y axis and the approprietness on the x axis. If I was Dear Abby I would say that you should be more forward in reminding Blurt to control his volume.

You've got me running a little scared. I recently moved into a shared office space, with another person. And a door. And windows. Wonderful. Before this recent move, I was often on the phone, trying to drum up business, in my downstairs open space (not a boring cubicle; a space complete with a drawing table, roomy). sound carried. My job. A drummer.Willy Loman. But it was impossible to discuss my visit to the ob-gyn in that space; everyone hears. So, maybe I was viewed as ol' Pawlie McLoud. I'm not too worried, though. Within five feet of me right now is Roberta McLoud. Your strong point, Army, is these priceless character sketches. Gems.

I think we've all had Blurt McLouds' in our lives, I know I have...and still do. I'm almost embarrassed to be out with them because they speak so loudly, sometimes making your 'personal' situations "not so personal" anymore...YIKES! You could always say to Blurt what your Tracy says to her children, "use your INSIDE voice"! Or do you think he'd get it???

Bryan, I definitely need to talk more with you about Colorado. Not sure if'n I'm the cowboy kind, but I reckon I could give er a try.

Allie, you're thinking of Ferrell because of his SNL character with voice-emodulation syndrome or whatever. His graph would be way different from Blurt's!

Matt-man, hilarious! I was thinking of the high talker and low talker from Seinfeld as I wrote this entry. Blurt would be a good addition to the cast of "talkers" on that show. Maybe for a reunion episode??

Robert, yes, a good old-fashioned confrontation would be nice. Problem is, Blurt makes everything into a joke and takes very little seriously, so trying to reason with him can be painful.

Pawlie, you and Roberta can become some kind of duet! We'll call your first album "Noise Pollution" and it will be grand! I tease, of course. Glad you enjoy my characters... I enjoy living with them! Sometimes...

Adva, my dear coworker and fellow survivor of Blurt's onslaught, all we can do is breath (and chillax and de-frazzle).

Oh Mom, one of your long time friends is a serious Blurt McLoud. We know who I'm talking about ; )As for your advice, I like it. But remember that IS his inside voice!